Button v Hamilton - Who Will Win ?

in DRIVERS F1 2010 by admin — March 13, 2010 at 7:24 am | 0 comments

Battle of the Drivers – Button vs. Hamilton

Ah, McLaren. Glossy and uber-corporate, the Woking outfit have been transformed from garagiste racers to F1 behemoth over the past 45 years.

This season brings two world champion drivers to the team for the first time since Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost faced off in what have now become legendary battles in the history of motorsport. Team principal Martin Whitmarsh claims that no such problems will occur this year, but few share his confidence.

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton are both – like every other driver on the grid – looking to beat their teammate. Hamilton wants to take back the coveted #1 that was so rudely taken from him in 2009, and Button wants to prove to his numerous critics that he has the requisite skills to take on one of the grid’s great talents on home territory.

Even if the two drivers remain friends in the garage throughout the season, they will be fierce rivals on track. But cordial relations between competitive men are often strained by victory – if Hamilton and Button are split by only a point or two come Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, the atmosphere in the McLaren garage will be beyond tense as each tries to gain advantage over the other.

In theory, Hamilton should walk the intra-team battle. While Button is both able and experienced, Hamilton has a prodigious natural talent that the Somerset driver can’t match. Now that Lewis has gained in experience – he is about to enter his fourth season in Formula 1 – he is a more even driver, less prone to damaging his car while squeezing out every last drop of performance. But that theory doesn’t take rule changes into account.

Where Button should shine this year is in tyre management. Now that drivers will be starting each race with a full tank of fuel, outright performance is less important than the balancing act of speed where it counts and tyres that can last the distance. Hamilton’s more aggressive style has already cost him races when tyres have collapsed beneath him, and heavier fuel loads will only compound the problem. The general expectation is that Lewis will consistently out-qualify his teammate while Jenson will scoop up the points with stellar drives on well-managed tyres late in the race.

I’m not so sure.

First, the fuel weights shouldn’t pose as much of a problem to Lewis as has been widely predicted. At the start of the race the heavier cars will burn more fuel, meaning that for around the first 20 laps weight will be steadily decreasing. From then on in, the cars will have a roughly similar fuel consumption and weight decrease as they did in 2009. If Lewis can make his qualifying tyres last for the first 20 laps and then pit, the rest of the race will see tyre wear pretty similar to that he’s become used to managing.

The narrower front tyres used in 2010 will suffer more wear than the drivers are used to, but performance issues there will be managed with the adjustable front wing, a device Hamilton used adroitly at the Barcelona tests. And Lewis is not the only driver who will need to learn to manage the narrower fronts – all of the grid will become more adept at this as the season wears on.

Then there’s the issue of handling. There’s not an F1 fan out there who hasn’t read about Lewis’ tyre problems, but Jenson suffers from what I think is the more serious problem of needing a perfect car beneath him to perform. No matter how well Button and his race engineers work to create a perfect set-up for the moment the lights go out, the changes in his car’s weight over the course of the race are going to lead to changes in balance and handling, which is Jenson’s worst nightmare. If the current world champion can cope with balance changes in the first 20 or so laps, he too will be on home territory for the rest of the race, and that’s where his smooth driving comes in.

French champion and former McLaren driver Alain Prost was known for winning races by stealth, keeping a steady pace for the bulk of the race and then putting in a stellar push on well-managed tyres to take the victory, or at least a podium.

If Button can emulate the Frenchman while overtaking like were Interlagos 2009 all over again, then he could be a real threat to Hamilton’s championship hopes. If, however, he qualifies in the middle of the pack, or slips back too far while trying to keep the car driving comfortably in the early stages, Button might find that retaining the championship – or even beating his teammate – is beyond his reach.

Both Lewis and Jenson have advantages and disadvantages on track, and if the game were purely racing I would put all my money on Hamilton’s talent beating Button’s smooth style. But this is Formula 1, and half the battle is politics and mind games, and that’s where I think Lewis is sure to beat the current champion.

Button is a steady character, but even he was frazzled by the media pressure at the end of last season. The British media enjoy building heroes up and tearing them down, and if the Somerset lad makes a slip or two, Fleet Street will go straight for the jugular. If Jenson is battling with a strong teammate, pressure from the media, and his self-confidence, his performance is likely to suffer. Couple that with the fact he is now surrounded by new faces at a new team – no matter how well he is said to have bedded-in – and the champion could begin to feel pretty lonely.

Lewis Hamilton has already pulled off what I think is a Machiavellian masterstroke of pre-season manipulation in his last-minute change of management. While turning his father from manager into dad will have been a great help to their relationship, the fact that McLaren will be looking after Lewis’ interests until a new manager is found gives the boy from Stevenage a psychological advantage over his new teammate. Like it or not, McLaren now have a reason to protect Lewis in an arena where Jenson has his own guardians.

The battle for supremacy within the McLaren garage is going to be a long one – I anticipate that both drivers will score points and make mistakes from the start of the season. The winner will be the man with his eye on the long game, and it is there that I think Hamilton’s ambition outstrips Button’s patience.

Kate Walker